Unhappy Far-Off Things eBook

I spoke of the rebuilding of his house no more, I
spoke no more of the new Croisilles shining through
future years; for these were not the things that he
saw in the future, and these were not the hopes of
the poor old man. He had one dark hope of the
future, and no others. He hoped to see the Kaiser
hung for the wrong he had done to Croisilles.
It was for this hope he lived.

Madame or senor of whatever far country, who may chance
to see these words, blame not this old man for the
fierce hope he cherished. It was the only hope
he had. You, Madame, with your garden, your house,
your church, the village where all know you, you may
hope as a Christian should, there is wide room for
hope in your future. You shall see the seasons
move over your garden, you shall busy yourself with
your home, and speak and share with your neighbours
innumerable small joys, and find consolation and beauty,
and at last rest, in and around the church whose spire
you see from your home. You, senor, with your
son perhaps growing up, perhaps wearing already some
sword that you wore once, you can turn back to your
memories or look with hope to the future with equal
ease.

The man that I met in Croisilles had none of these
things at all. He had that one hope only.

Do not, I pray you, by your voice or vote, or by any
power or influence that you have, do anything to take
away from this poor old Frenchman the only little
hope he has left. The more trivial his odd hope
appears to you compared with your own high hopes that
come so easily to you amongst all your fields and
houses, the more cruel a thing must it be to take
it from him.

I learned many things in Croisilles, and the last
of them is this strange one the old man taught me.
I turned and shook hands with him and said good-bye,
for I wished to see again our old front line that
we used to hold over the hill, now empty, silent at
last. “The Boche is defeated,” I
said.

“Vaincu, vaincu,” he repeated. And
I left him with something almost like happiness looking
out of his tearful eyes.

Bermondsey versus Wurtemburg

The trees grew thinner and thinner along the road,
then ceased altogether, and suddenly we saw Albert
in the wood of the ghosts of murdered trees, all grey
and deserted.

Descending into Albert past trees in their agony we
came all at once on the houses. You did not see
them far off as in other cities; we came on them all
at once as you come on a corpse in the grass.

We stopped and stood by a house that was covered with
plaster marked off to look like great stones, its
pitiful pretence laid bare, the slates gone and the
rooms gone, the plaster all pitted with shrapnel.
Near it lay an iron railing, a hand-rail blown there
from the railway bridge; a shrapnel bullet had passed
through its twisted stem as though it had gone through
butter. And beside the hand-rail lay one of the
great steel supports of the bridge that had floated
there upon some flaming draught; the end of it bent
and splayed as though it had been a slender cane that
someone had shoved too hard into the earth.